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Almost as easy as Tier 1. Not only are they tightly bunched on points. Aside from 1 #2 for G. Wright, these 3 got all of the votes for #2. And aside from 1 vote for Lloyd at #12, none of them placed below #6 on any ballot. Their norms also were 2-3-4.

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Tier 3

5. Davis 474
6. Dahlin 456
7. Yount 451

Still easy. All of their norms are 5 and 6, and all 3 placed as high as 4 or 5 which, again, nobody else besides those above and Appling (1X) and G. Wright did.

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Tier 4

8. Appling 408

Appling's range, 5-17, is more like Yount, but his norm(s) is/are 8-9-10 versus Yount at 5-6.

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Tier 5

9. G. Wright 373

Not only is a 35 point spread too much to consider a tier, Appling and G. Wright just have nothing in common. Appling is a fairly typical case. IOW his range of 5 to 17 and his norm(s) of 8-9-10 are reflective of his finish. G. Wright's range of 2-24 is totally unique. His norm is 7 and only Jennings departs from his norm by more than 2 places.

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Tier 6

10. Cronin 347
11. Banks 326
12. Wells 325

All of them range from 7 to 21 or 22.

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Tier 7

13. Johnson 313
14. Smith 303

Johnson and Smith both range from 9 to 19, though Johnson's norm is 11 and Ozzie's is/are 12 and 15.

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Tier 8

15. Trammell 283
16. Reese 243
17. Boudreau 216

This is a non-tier tier. (With Appling and G. Wright, I figured it's the top 10, it matters. Here, I'm just being less picky.). A big spread but their ranges and norms are a lot closer than their point totals would suggest. They're more like Tier 6 --Trammell's range is 7-21 (but his norm is 16). Reese's is 10-22 and Boudreau's 8-22, though the numbers didn't add up. Still, Reese's norm(s) is/are 13-14-15-18, Boudreau's is 17, right in Trammell's area. What this suggests to me is that if we had another 24 voters who saw things in the same range and saw the same norms, these guys could end up a lot closer. The spread might just be an artifact of a small sample. Who knows, maybe Trammell could even overcome Ozzie if Ozzie's norm was 15 rather than 12.

I could argue Trammell any one of three ways--Tier 7 with Ozzie, Tier 8 with Reese and Boudreau, or Tier 8 by himself and everybody below him drops down a tier. The likelihood is he's locked in at #16, yet he's the trickiest of them all in terms of what tier that represents. My compromise is to lump him in Tier 8 and call it a non-tier tier, a catch-all.

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Tier 9

19. Ward 169

Wait a minute, where's #18? Ward is another anomaly, like G. Wright, in that his range is 9-23, and he is also tricky in the way Trammell is tricky. Bottom line: Everybody else from 18 and 20ff was ranked dead last on somebody's ballot.

Here again, looking at a secondary number (high range in the top 12, fully 4 slots higher than anybody had Wallace or Sewell), one could argue to swap Moore and Wallace. IOW a different sampling of voters, even following the same pattern of range and norms, could get a different result on those 2. Everybody else (in these tiers) is probably locked in place.

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Tier 11

22. Wallace 129 (16-25)
24. Lundy 87 (18-25)
25. Sewell 77 (16-25)

What this says is that this ballot is complicated, structurally. The variables of time (timeline), place (NeLs) and Ward's pitching were especially hard to deal with. At other positions, the timeline effects are not as severe (even 1880s versus 1870s)--i.e. there's been nobody like G. Wright, and there's been nobody like Ward before either. The fact is that there've almost always been lot's of great athletes at SS, and so ranking guys like Boudreau and Ward and Wells and Trammell down around #20 seemed wrong, but somebody had to be there.

Standard deviation of placement by candidates: Wagner was a zero, of course; the next lowest were Vaughn a 0.81 and Ripken a 1.01; Lloyd's 2.01 standard deviation was almost entirely due to Rusty. The single most disagreed about candidate was Wright at 5.30, followed by Jennings at 4.05. Most of the the candidates in the middle had standard deviations in the 3.2-3.8 range; Smith. (2.86) Reese (2.85), and Johnson (2.90) showed more agreement than that.

Yeah, I was Banks' and Pearce's and Moore's best friend, and tied on Ripken thought that doesn't really count. Worst enemy of Vaughan, Appling, Boudreau and Wallace, though Wallace doesn't really count either. Everybody had somebody last.

Old timers know I'm a strong peak voter and a fanatic on "all eras."

Big surprise: I think I had G. Wright around #5 and I just got blown out of the water.

I am surprised my consensus score was so high, given that I disagreed pretty seriously with the results at several positions. I guess the level of agreement on shortstops was much lower than it has been for C/1B/2B.

This is the ballot thread. Only Dan R. and andrew siegel placed the active players, with both of them putting Rodriguez #2, Larkin firmly in the top 10, and Jeter somewhere in the teens. DL from MN didn't rank ARod or Jeter but did rank the retired but not yet eligible Larkin, and also had him in the top 10. That's only 3 of our voters, but I don't see any reason to imagine that they were particularly unusual. I would assume that ARod would be a fairly easy #2 already, with no chance of ever catching up to Wagner no matter how long he plays, and Larkin as a top-10 candidate and Jeter easily in the HoM seem reasonably solid choices as well.

The three points that would come up with each of these three candidates:

Rodriguez: is it still true that the majority of his value is at SS, or should he move to the 3B list? I said that he can't catch Wagner no matter how long he plays, but if he plays till he's 43 and hits 850 HR, while staying at 3B, then he'd have a chance of knocking Schmidt off the top of that list.

Larkin: How much do you deduct for his lack of durability, especially in-season durability?

I haven't worked up A-Rod or Jeter, but #2 and bottom third of HoM shorstops seem right.

I have worked up Larkin. I would have him at #12, if A-Rod is also included. My eligible top 10 matches the overall results (though not in the precise order), except that Grant Johnson ranks higher. #12 puts Larkin immediately behind Robin Yount, Grant Johnson, and George Wright, immediately ahead of Willie Wells, Alan Trammell, and Joe Cronin.

ARod had 1.13 PA as a SS. Through 2005, he had only .25 PA as a 3B. If he gets that high at 3B, he's going to have passed everyone but Ruth, Bonds, Wagner, Cobb, Speaker, Mays and Williams (if you give war credit) on the all-time player list; the 1.13 would be good for about 16th at SS all by itself.

I would say this year he finally passed Ripken into second on the all-time SS list, I had them about tied going into this season.

I had Lou Boudreau 22nd on the SS ballot, Ernie Banks 19th, with Dickey Pearce and John Ward between them. I'd probably have Jeter somewhere in that mix. I doubt I'd have him past Bobby Wallace yet.

He is slowing down this year too, he's having his worst year in the majors, a little worse than 1996-1997 right now. Who knows how much he's got left in the tank, he's 34 already.

I would probably put Larkin somewhere between 5th and 7th (6th and 8th counting ARod), which is below Arky Vaughan, but in the ballpark with Yount and Appling.

I could have easily missed someone, but that list is basically in order. I think Rizzuto and Campaneris are arguably the best position players eligible that aren't in the Hall of Merit. Definitely in the top 10.